Everyone shared the photos of Jaafar and Bubbles. They are fake.
But the real story is much more beautiful
When the biopic Michael premiered in theaters at the end of April, the internet went completely wild as expected. I did too, by the way, I was more into Prince and Madonna, but I’ve been to the movie twice now and have rediscovered Michael’s music with my daughters. Streams doubled, Billie Jean suddenly reappeared in the global top five, and everyone is praising Jaafar Jackson, Michael's nephew, who plays his uncle so convincingly that people forget during the film that they are watching an actor. And the photo that everyone shared and rewarded with hearts was that of Jaafar with Bubbles, Michael Jackson's monkey. Because the monkey is still alive, and oh what a sweetheart Jaafar is for visiting Bubbles as a tribute to his uncle. It was exactly the story we all wanted to see.
It was also completely made up.
The Center for Great Apes, the Florida sanctuary where Bubbles has lived for over twenty years, had to issue an official statement about it. The photos are AI-generated, they wrote. Jaafar Jackson has never visited the sanctuary. He would be welcome, but he simply has never been there. Sanctuary director Patti Ragan dryly added that Jaafar probably didn't even know that Bubbles was still alive.
A chimpanzee in a little suit
Bubbles was rescued as a baby from a biomedical research center in Texas in the early 1980s. At that time, Michael Jackson was busy conquering the world with Thriller and apparently decided that his life became more complete with a chimpanzee. He was not the first celebrity with an exotic pet (remember when George Clooney had a little pig as a pet), but what he did with Bubbles went beyond a toy for a rich pop star. Michael took him everywhere. On tour. To Japanese state banquets, where Bubbles drank tea with the mayor of Osaka alongside him. To the wedding of his lawyer John Branca, where Bubbles was listed as a plus one on the guest list. In newspaper articles and photos, they always appeared together, often dressed in matching outfits, as if Michael wanted to emphasize that Bubbles was not his pet but his companion.
At Neverland Ranch, Bubbles slept in a crib in Michael's bedroom. He ate at the table. There are photos of him on Michael's arm, both wearing sunglasses, looking like two friends on vacation. Michael often referred to him as his son.
The moment everything changed
Chimpanzees grow. That sounds like an open door, but it is exactly where this story takes a turn. A baby chimpanzee is small, soft, and relatively manageable. An adult chimpanzee is a different order of magnitude, literally and figuratively. They grow large, strong, and can be dangerous if they want to. By the end of the 1990s, Bubbles had grown into an impressive ape weighing nearly seventy kilos, and his behavior became more unpredictable. Michael temporarily sent him to an animal caretaker, but he never returned to Neverland.
In 2005, the year Michael definitively left the ranch after his acquittal in a trial, Bubbles was brought to the Center for Great Apes in Wauchula, Florida. Michael was making plans to visit him before his death in 2009, according to sanctuary director Patti Ragan. The visit never happened.
A life in Florida
Bubbles is now 43 years old and weighs about 170 pounds, around 77 kilos. He is what the sanctuary calls an elder statesman, an older resident who moves a bit slower than before but still eats well and is active. He lives in a group of five chimpanzees and has helped raise two young chimpanzees during his years at the sanctuary. His best buddy is a 52-year-old chimpanzee named Oopsy, who was once a stand-in in a 1970s American television series, which Bubbles probably finds less special than we do.
His favorite pastime is collecting things. He loves little backpacks with Velcro, which he unfolds, fills with his belongings, and then carries around like a child protecting his treasures. The monkey who once walked the red carpet on the arm of the world's biggest pop star is now a retired chimpanzee carrying his own backpack in a sanctuary in Florida. And I find that all quite sweet.
The Michael Jackson Estate still contributes to his care. The cost of keeping a chimpanzee in the sanctuary is $30,000 per year. Bubbles is not mentioned in Michael's will, but his estate voluntarily provides for him. Patti Ragan describes him as a sweet, lovely “guy,” and says that people still envision him as the little monkey with the pink face that Michael carried everywhere. But that image is no longer the reality.
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And what about the photos?
They were made by someone with an AI tool and spread across social media in hours, shared by people who found the story beautiful - including me, I fell for it with my eyes wide open - and the sanctuary had to issue a statement about it. It went as follows: We are pleased with the renewed interest in Bubbles, they wrote, but we are not an attraction and our animals are not celebrity meeting points. Jaafar Jackson is always welcome for an observation visit. But the chimpanzees are not to be touched, not to be performed, and not to be used for Hollywood.
Bubbles himself knows nothing. He is in Wauchula, Florida, with his little backpack full of treasures, next to his old friend Oopsy. And if Jaafar ever wants to come by for a real visit, the door is open. What I was also curious about was, how are the other animals of Michael Jackson doing?
What has become of the other animals from Neverland?
Neverland Ranch was at its peak home to more than fifty species of animals. When Michael definitively left the estate in 2005, plans had to be made for all those animals. Not all stories are equally cheerful.
- His elephant Ali was placed at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens in Florida, where she still lives. In 2024, she underwent a complex operation in which her tusks were removed, performed by thirty specialists.
- The two tigers Thriller and Sabu were taken in by Shambala Preserve in California, a sanctuary run by actress Tippi Hedren. Thriller died in 2012 from lung cancer.
- Thirteen Chilean flamingos moved to the Cape May County Park Zoo in New Jersey, where they found a new home.
- An albino Burmese python, named by Michael after Madonna (they had a close bond, Madonna and Michael) was transferred to a rescue center in Colorado.
- His llamas Louie and Lola, and the two orangutans who frequently appeared in photos with him, have disappeared from the radar. Their current whereabouts have never been officially communicated.
- And then there are the giraffes. Four of them ended up after Neverland at a private rescue in Arizona, where the conditions were far from ideal according to PETA. Two of them died there, possibly due to cold and improper nutrition. The other two were still alive in 2011, but nothing has been reported about their fate since.
It is the less glossy chapter of Michael's love for animals. A love that was sincere, say people who knew him, but that also crossed the boundaries of what a person can realistically provide for a private menagerie of fifty species on a ranch in California.
But Bubbles, he is doing well. And when Jaafar has a bit more time, he will surely pay a visit. Although I don't think he will share the photo on Instagram.
Source: Over the years, there have always been some rumors here and there. In 2023, Kim spoke out again in an episode of The Kardashians. “The one who was supposed to protect me (Kanye) – and still says in interviews that he will be my protector forever – is the one who hurts me the most. He was the one who started the rumor that I slept with Drake and that we had an affair. He publicly accused me of that throughout our entire marriage.” In that same year, Kim was spotted at one of Drake’s concerts. Here she even sang along with a soundbite of herself that is in the song Search & Rescue. & VARIETY
